The present study examined whether burnout and negative ruminations of helping professional were reduced by writing about their dissonant emotional experiences. Twenty helping professionals were randomly assigned to either the experimental condition (writing about emotionally dissonant experiences for three weeks) or the control condition (without writing). The results revealed that participants in the experimental condition had significantly lower scores for emotional dissonance than the control group immediately and three weeks after the experimental intervention. Qualitative analyses of the content written by the participants showed that individuals who had more beneficial change on the score for emotional dissonance wrote more cognitive words. This correlation suggests that writing about emotional dissonance may facilitate cognitive restructuring of emotional experiences, which results in decreasing emotional dissonance.

This study examined the influence on source monitoring of activating specific information. In Experiment 1, the order of the source of the information was manipulated. The results showed that when an item was strongly linked to a correct source, source monitoring of the item was accurate. On the other hand, in Experiments 2 and 3, activation of a specific item was manipulated. The results showed that when an item was activated in an unrelated context of an event which participants saw, it did not influence the source monitoring. But when an item was activated in a related context, it influenced the source monitoring. In addition, the results showed that the influence on source monitoring was different depending on the kind of activated item. These experiments suggested that the accessibility or activation influenced the source monitoring, and especially the accessibility of source information was important for accurate source monitoring.

This study examined the moderating effect of self-esteem on the relationship between public self-consciousness and social anxiety, and on the relationship between public self-consciousness and exhibitionism in Japan and South Korea. The participants were 213 university students in Japan and 234 university students in Korea. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that self-esteem was a moderator of the relationship between public self-consciousness and social anxiety and of the relationship between public self-consciousness and exhibitionism in Korea, but not in Japan. In Korea, public self-consciousness was related to social anxiety for people with low self-esteem, while for people with high self-esteem, public self-consciousness was related to exhibitionism.

This study investigated the possible effects of genetic and environmental gender differences in effect on individual differences by using the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) with twins. A sex/gender-limitation analysis, a behavior genetics methodology was used to the following: (a) effects of gender-specific genes, (b) gender differences in quantitative genetic effects, (c) effects of gender-specific shared environment, (d) gender differences of quantitative shared environment, and (e) gender differences of quantitative nonshared environment. Participants were adolescent and adult twins, including 111 identical male pairs, 241 identical female pairs, 36 fraternal male pairs, 65 fraternal female pairs, and 58 opposite-gender pairs. The results indicated that although masculinity and femininity were explained by genetic factors to some extent, there were no significant gender differences in the genetic factors. Moreover, because our data did not support a model which explained gender differences in the effects of specific common environment factors, no evidence was found to support the prenatal hormonal hypothesis or the existence of parenting which encouraged children's gender role personality.

The structure of humor expression was clarified and its relationships with aggression, altruism, and self-acceptance were examined. In study 1, college students (n=216) responded to a scale with items about humor expression. An exploratory factor analysis indicated three types of humor expression: aggressive, self-disparaging, and playful humor expression. In study 2, 119 college students responded to items about (a) humor expression, (b) aggression, (c) altruism, and (d) self-acceptance. The results showed positive relationships between aggressive humor expression and aggression, self-disparaging humor expression and self-acceptance, and playful humor expression and altruism.

This study examined the hypothesis that when students received and/or provided either support for skill improvement or support for interpersonal relations, their overall adjustment level in extracurricular activities would be higher than for students who received and/or provided neither support. Data were analyzed from 475 junior high school students (female 175, male 300) who were taking extracurricular sports activities, out of 743 research participants. The results were as follows. Students who received support mainly for skill improvement showed a statistically equivalent adjustment level as students who received support mainly for interpersonal relations. Students who received either support showed higher adjustment levels than students who received neither. Additionally, providing support showed the same results. The exchange of different types of social support showed equivalent effects on the adjustment level as the exchange of the same type of social support. These results suggest that even though the types of social support are different for skill improvement or interpersonal relations, the exchange of support positively contributes to junior high school students' adjustment level in extracurricular activities.

Primates and birds are visually dominant species. Recent comparative studies in visual perception address questions about the differences between humans and nonhuman primates, as well as primates and birds. This paper discusses the relative importance of global and local visual processing in primates and birds. Although most nonhuman animals, unlike humans, show a local advantage when processing hierarchical compounding stimuli, studies using other types of stimuli revealed that primate vision may process global information prior to local information. In contrast, the importance of global processing for birds is restricted for ecologically important stimuli such as conspecific images. Both global and local precedence in vision are the result of animals' equally successful adaptations to their living environments, implying that global-oriented human vision is not the only best system.